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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1628 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 21, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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assassinate the wrong person by mistake sometimes

For what it's worth, I don't think it makes a huge difference whether they hit Dugin or his daughter, and Fomin was clearly the intended target (with the 42 other injuries being considered acceptable, considering the MO of bombing a public appearance in a closed room). You might argue that hitting anti-Ukrainian agitators and their audience does not imply willingness to hit random civilians, but few people would have been willing to make that distinction e.g. for the Charlie Hebdo attack (plus I heard diffuse statements that at least one of the concerts yesterday may also have been linked to some anti-Ukrainian agitation).

IS claimed responsibility

There are plenty of historical examples of them claiming responsibility for things they didn't do (some parallel comment brought up the Las Vegas shooting). Not that they wouldn't have the motive and means, but the details here so far don't seem to line up - above all, I can't think of Islamic terrorist attacks consistent with the pattern of perpetrators running and, upon being caught, claiming they were anonymously hired to do it for money, while this is the general pattern for Slav-on-Slav terrorism in Russia including in particular the cases that have been attributed to Ukraine beyond doubt. If all we have in favour of the ISIS theory is "perps are vaguely Muslim", "ISIS claimed responsibility" and "main backer of an alternative suspect agreed with the ISIS claim", that is not particularly strong evidence.

By the same token, Russia blaming Ukraine and the attackers breaking for the Ukrainian border doesn’t mean very much either, and this is much more IS’s MO than Ukraine’s.

Russia blaming Ukraine indeed adds little information, but I don't see how you arrive at the conclusion that them making a break for the UA border doesn't mean much. We have plenty of non-ISIS cases where terrorism was committed by Muslim-aligned peoples and where ISIS claimed responsibility, and while the constellation of details is too rare for concrete precedent of "true perp backers claimed ISIS", surely it's a common pattern for more general crimes. On the other hand, do we have precedent of non-UA-backed terrorists running to UA?

Also, what do you rest your claim that it is "much more IS's MO" on?

Ukraine is probably not too worried about apprehending people who killed Russians, and while they might get around to arresting these guys(or shanghaiing them into the army), they'd have to get around to it, and it's a badly run country losing an existential war and with a big chunk of its security establishment controlled by actual literal Nazis who think Russians are subhuman so going there probably buys a little bit of time to plan out an escape to some tiny IS controlled shithole.

And slaughtering completely random people in person is simply not the sort of thing we've seen Ukraine do. Either bombings with missiles and drones, or assassinations clearly directed at a specific target? Sure. Ukraine does those things. But random concert goers are not a specific target.

and with a big chunk of its security establishment controlled by actual literal Nazis who think Russians are subhuman

[citation needed]

EDIT: Also, actual literal Nazis would consider Ukrainians to be subhuman. People sometimes hold insane beliefs, but there are limits how many will seriously demand to be genocided.

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